Dysbiosis Diet Overview

There are millions of internet searches every single day with the word diet in the search term. Whether the search is motivated by weight loss, health reasons, or just boredom with an existing diet, we are constantly seeking out the next great diet revelation.
We give this new diet our all, maybe invest in some new kitchen equipment, but how long until we realise that the promise of our new diet was an empty one?
We didn’t lose the weight that was promised, or worse we did but the diet was unrealistic over the long term, and we piled the weight back on.
The recovery to good health never came.Usually a diet is based on theory not experience, with the sole aim of financial gain to the inventor, who has never suffered from the health condition(s) in question.

Frequently our new diet is unenjoyable, not varied enough, and downright bland, how can this diet possibly be sustainable in the long term?
Do you know of any other species on the planet that doesn’t know what to eat? Every single species on this planet, with the exception of humans, knows exactly what to eat to get the right micro and macro nutrients, maintain the correct weight, and generally live a healthy life.
We’ve lost our way and the problem has been exacerbated by our hectic lifestyles.
Ready meals and processed foods provide a solution to this problem with disastrous consequences. Heart disease, Type 2 Diabetes, and various digestive illnesses are on the increase and have been described as 21st century illnesses.
So how do we correct this imbalance in our food choices?

We can gain inspiration from our Palaeolithic ancestors, or look to our Mediterranean cousins with their ultra-healthy way of life that’s been forged over thousands of years, but let’s not overlook our own heritage.
My grandparents lived well into their late 90’s, in fact one of my grandmothers is still alive and well at the grand old age of 96. I’ve often thought about their longevity and what their secret was. Both pre and post-war (WW2) conditions were tough, wages didn’t go a long way like they can do today, and the ‘old’ generation had to use a lot of ingenuity to make meals interesting, tasty, varied and most importantly inexpensive.
It’s a fact throughout the UK that modern houses come with very small gardens, with the emphasis placed on entertaining & relaxing and all produce these days is bought in rather than home produced, (although we are on the verge of a revolution as more people want to know the origin of their produce).

If you want to buy a house in the UK with a good sized garden then you have to look to the houses built pre 1970’s. Most of the older generation needed a good sized garden to grow their own fruit & vegetables, maybe keep a few chickens to augment their diet with eggs and meat, and it’s also a fact that it was fairly common for a pig to be kept at the top of the garden, but it’s fair to say that most emphasis was placed on growing fruit & veg.
Meat was expensive so meals were augmented with fish, offal, dairy, and once or twice a week prime cuts of meat may have been consumed, but similar to the Mediterranean Diet fruit and veg were the main sources of nutrients within their diet and provided the base for every meal.

As a child growing up times had changed for the better with most produce readily accessible and much cheaper than in the old days.
My grandparent consumed plentiful amounts of saturated fat, protein, and sugar in their diets during their later years, but despite their consumption of ‘unhealthy’ fats and sugar why did they still live long and active lives? Because their diets were packed full of vegetables and to a lesser extent fruit and as we will learn throughout this blog, soluble fibre is one of the most important, and one of the most overlooked, nutrients in our diet.
I believe it is the consumption of fruit & veg and in particular their content of fibre, macro & micro nutrients, and phytochemicals that prevented some of the ‘bad’ foods from causing serious disease and shortening their longevity of life.

The Dysbiosis Diet takes some of its inspiration from a combination of both the older generation’s diet and the Mediterranean Diet.
I’m also very big on smoothies and soups as they were key to helping me recover from digestive illness.
However, it’s all well and good eating healthy foods to prevent dysbiosis but eating these foods once dysbiosis of the digestive system has taken hold will prove unhelpful in curing the problem. The cure for dysbiosis lies in the introduction to the Dysbiosis Diet of fermented foods and a few carefully chosen supplements. 
The Dysbiosis diet is the sole result of my battle with digestive illness. It’s nutritious, varied, very enjoyable, but most importantly, it works! 
The essence of the Dysbiosis Diet is a 4-step approach to clear the GI tract of pathogens, rejuvenate the entire colon, and prevent access to the small intestines. This entire process can be shown through the 4 p’s of the Holobiont Diet.

The purge phase steadily acidifies the entire digestive tract throughout a 14 day period. This kills pathogenic yeasts and bacteria in the mouth, the small intestines, and the colon.

On day 5 of the Holobiont diet the prepare phase is started. Throughout this stage our diet will be rich in prebiotics which not only offer conferred benefits in their own right to our digestive system, but provide a fuel source which will encourage transient commensal bacteria to take up residence in the space left after the purge phase. Prebiotics will also encourage any existing good bacteria to flourish and multiply.

Day 8 sees the introduction of the populate phase to our diet and the inclusion to the Holobiont of probiotics, the friendly bacteria that will top up any existing bacteria in the colon, or any bacteria that have taken up residence after being introduced during the Purge phase.

Finally day 9, the propagate phase, combines the previous 3 phases to provide a long lasting diet that will maintain a healthy digestive system indefinitely.